


when i say machine (i mean be patient with me)

by closingdoors



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, the recent trailers got me emotional about these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 09:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18407555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closingdoors/pseuds/closingdoors
Summary: He and Nebula split the last bit of food in half. Tony's stomach has already begun caving in on itself.He wonders if Pepper had known this would happen.





	when i say machine (i mean be patient with me)

perhaps, I am not broken,  
I just need someone who understands when I say  _machine_  
I mean  _be patient with me_. I mean, don’t be surprised  
if you go to touch me & I’ve already left out the back window.  
perhaps, someone snuck in one night & replaced my bones  
with fire escapes & that’s why I understand the world best  
as an exit.  
  
**A Note On Demisexuality, Brandon Melendez**

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

He expects the end. He anticipates it. He sends Pepper too many messages that he doesn't expect she'll receive.

In the end, he can only hope that death will be like falling asleep. Like falling into dreams of red hair, and safety, and forgiveness.

 

 

 

 

His head is in her lap. She cards her fingers through his hair softly as she watches the television, ingesting stock numbers. Tony stretches out like a cat, unfurling as the nightmares and fear do too, swept away by the rhythm of gentle hands.

 _Tell me about the kid,_ she requests, and for a moment he wonders if she's somehow worked her way inside his head. 

_The kid?_

_Spiderboy,_ she replies, the edges of her lips curling upwards.  _Peter._

 

 

 

 

Yinsen asks him if he has a family. 

Sometimes, he wonders if Yinsen sees right through him. If he wears Pepper all over him like a tattoo, a permanent part of him. There's really no other point behind the fighting. No other reason to go home, if not to be welcomed by a warm smile.

God, he hopes he gets to see her smile again.

Before Yinsen dies, he says he's going to see his family again. Tony wonders if anyone realises how easy that would be for him, too. To succumb to it all. The nothingness, with the potential of his loving mother, his disappointed father. 

He blows the terrorist cell to smithereens instead. When he gets off the plane back on American soil, Pepper greets him with a smile.

 

 

 

 

_Hey, Aunt Peggy._

He greets her with a kiss and new flowers. When he goes to set them in the vase, he finds a different set to what he last remembers leaving. He brushes a thumb across one of the red tulip petals.

_Who left these?_

She shifts, the grey of her hair like a crown when she does.  _I don't remember._

Isn't that the crux of it all, really? He's spent so long fighting against something he can't forget, while she struggles to remember anyone. He loathes to think of the day when he walks in here and she doesn't remember him. 

Tony takes a seat by her side. It's not the first time he's wished he could cure the Alzheimer's. But with the Accords looming, the want is even stronger. He wonders if she would ingest a word he said if he tried to explain it all to her, seeking her approval.

_How's your girlfriend?_

Tony takes in a stuttering breath.

 _Pepper? She's good,_ he replies, and it's not entirely a lie, because he thinks the break really has been good for her.

The next morning, he gets a text that Peggy passed away in her sleep. He doesn't go to the funeral.

 

 

 

 

After Afghanistan, he buys a ring.

 

 

 

 

His didn't tell his father he loved him. His father died and Tony's still not entirely sure where they ever really stood with each other.

When Tony's dying, he goes to Pepper's office, trying to confess words and feelings too big to wrap his head around. He brings her strawberries she's allergic to. 

He didn't tell his father that he loved him. Tony watches Pepper leave. He doesn't tell her that he loves her, either.

 

 

 

 

Steve drops the shield. Tony spits blood on the floor.

He realises he owes Pepper years of apologies.

 

 

 

 

He doesn't know what he expects after they first sleep together. He'd kissed her on that rooftop over a week before. They'd both been too busy putting out his literal fires for anything more. 

In the after, his skin's aglow. Sex has always been a means to an end. A brief moment of euphoria, found in someone meaningless.

But this euphoria isn't brief, and Pepper is full of so much meaning.

She rests her temple against her palm and watches him.

 _You're so beautiful,_  he tells her.

He can see her eyes shine thanks to the light of the arc reactor. 

 _So are you,_  she responds, one palm coming to rest above the blue light.

 _I love you,_  he says, because it's true.

She smiles. She meets him in a kiss.

_I know._

 

 

 

Most of the time spent on the ship, drifting through space without hope of rescue, he wonders if he had always planned on spending the majority of his relationship with Pepper leaving.

He and Nebula split the last bit of food in half. Tony's stomach has already begun caving in on itself.

He wonders if Pepper had known this would happen. He wonders what he's done to deserve a woman who's accepted she'll be widowed one day. He wonders why she'd agreed to marry him.

Tony sits and watches the stars as they pass by. 

 

 

 

 

His first night back from Afghanistan, he hears his own name ringing in his ears. A shout from Pepper's lungs he's heard during the torture, even if he's never heard it in real life.

He tries and fails to sleep. His body is covered in a story he's unwilling to tell anyone. They can all see the light under his shirts, but none dare ask, not even Pepper.

He thinks, if she asked, he would show her.

 

 

 

 

 _When did you buy this?_  Pepper asks after the conference, studying the ring on her finger.

_You heard Happy._

The ring glitters in the sunlight. Pepper tilts her head and tendrils of red fall over her shoulders. She is the only person where _red_ doesn't mean _blood_ to him. She curls her hand into a fist.

 _You didn't love me back then,_  she states.

 _I've loved you for a long time,_  he answers, and watches the space between her eyebrows wrinkle. He presses a thumb there.  _Just took me a while to give the feeling a name._

 

 

 

 

The sleep he gets after the Captain leaves him for dead is fitful, even after he swallows a handful of sleeping pills. Just as the sun begins to rise, Pepper appears on his doorstep, with the suitcase of things she'd taken with her when she'd left him.

The bags beneath her eyes are almost as bruised as his. Tony starts to tell her she should leave, but she fists his shirt and yanks him in to a fierce kiss.

She moves back home.

 

 

 

 

He says it, right before the first kiss,  _you deserve better,_ and she doesn't refute him.

 

 

 

 

Steve is gone, Natasha is gone, Vision is gone - hell, all of them are gone. But Pepper's here, and he thinks she's the only person that counts.

He has dreams of a child the night before everything falls apart.

 

 

 

 

 _Hey, Mr Stark, congratulations! You're getting married! That's awesome._  

There's more wittering from the spiderling left on his voicemail. Tony listens to it all. Pepper walks in when he's right in the middle of listening to the kid tell him he rescued three cats from trees that day. 

He waits for her to tell him he's no more than a child. That he should detach himself from the kid. That he should teach him to avoid danger, not to run right into the middle of it, but she doesn't.

Pepper takes a seat in the workshop and listens with him.

 

 

 

 

_I wanted to be an actress when I was a child. How ridiculous is that?_

Pepper tells him this as they lay in bed one night. She turns towards him with a smile, and he smiles back automatically.

 _What did you want to be?_ She asks.

He stares up at the ceiling, considering it. The idea that as a child, he  _wanted_ for anything. 

Perhaps, most of the time, to get away from his father, from his glaring and his arrogance and his heavy fists.  

 _An astronaut,_ he finally remembers, and when he blinks he's watching the nuke light up the inky nothingness ahead of him. 

Pepper curls her body around his. Her touch is like balm, most of the time.

 

 

 

 

When their bodies finally collide, he has no idea if it's an oxygen-deprived dream.

Her arms curl around his shoulders. He lets his eyes close. There's peace, even as he feels her shake with a cry.

If this is death, he wants it.


End file.
